Today as I was doing my physical therapy in the pool today I was reminded of a word: Woundology. Often when someone has been through some kind of life altering illness or situation that understandably becomes their raison d’être, their focus… their defining sense of self.

“They are striving to confront their painful experiences, valiantly working to bring meaning to past traumas, and exercis- ing compassionate understanding of others who share their wounds. But they are still not healing. Rather, they have redefined their lives around their wounds and the pro- cess of accepting them.”- Caroline Myss

As we try to connect to others we do so by finding a common ground but by doing so it tends to be around our wounds and that becomes our language. I still catch myself doing it after a week of migraines I’ll say, “Sure, I can but I have to see how I feel” which I see as taking care of myself but in actuality it is setting myself up for the pain. As opposed to simply, “Sure I can!” and then cross that bridge later when I get to it because simply since something has happened in the past doesn’t mean it will happen again. I’m not saying it’s easy but small steps in staying in the present moment is the way to go. There are a lot of other factors that come into play here as Ms. Myss states but for me all is aided by staying in the moment. I focus my language around what is positive and healthy. I also look at what the present “pain” might be telling me. How can it inform me as to what I may not being seeing in my life. How do I choose to be healthy? And currently I choose, as some of you may have read, something Radically Beautiful.

So I wonder, how do you talk to yourself and to others. How do you define yourself? And the big one what story of yourself do you create?

I have been chatting a bit about finding something Radically Beautiful with my clients recently. This effort is a great way to bring you back into the moment when we find ourselves crazed from the day. I tend to find the way the light looks as my radically beautiful thing. Here a couple of pictures to illustrate some light I find pretty breathtaking. My friend Michael Alan Wells took the picture on the left. Now let’s take a deep breath in and a deep breath out… Ahhhhhh. Taking advantage of this skill can do so much for you. It not only brings you right back into presence but it goes so far as to immediately lower your blood pressure. I find seeing that which is Radically beautiful is even better than asking myself “Where are my feet right now?”. Which has been my go to, to bring myself back into the present moment. This skill helps us to see the beauty in the world instead of the thing that might be taking us out of the moment because we don’t like what’s currently happening. Once we take a beat and stop and “look up and look out” and relax into the moment we have an easier time assessing what is really going on for us. so that we can choose what we want to feel and think.

Which leads me to my next thought. I was out and about today with my sweetie and A-bomb and was looking at my phone when I stopped and looked up and looked out and realized I was missing the day. How often have you been lost in a gadget and missed out on what was really happening right in front of you? I almost missed out on a spectacular day. So put down that gadget (of course after you stop reading this post :-)) and get out of the house today!

“We live in a non stop world!” This phrase has been stated over and over again usually in the same sentence with the internet, social media, children, work and everything else one can imagine. Now today was one of those days for me. It seemed as if I wanted to start my day over the moment it began. That said there are many people who say to simply change your thoughts about the day. Meaning that we say, “Ok now my day is exactly as we make it and thus it’s a great day!”

There is some validity to this. To quote Dr. Wayne Dyer, “If we change the way we look at things the things we look at change”. Yet, I know that my day starts with a ritual of meditation and coffee. So if it switches up as it did today, I can have a hard time getting back on tract. So in the vain of seeing things that are radically beautiful today (look at last weeks post) I took a few minutes to make another cup of coffee and sit down for a sip or 2 to recalibrate. This moment stopped me from a down hill slope. Which gets me to my point, How do you stop the habitual pattern of the “down word spiral” of unhealthy thought? The thoughts that keeps us in a habitual pattern that feeds our stress. We don’t always make it easy on ourselves to simply change our thoughts on a dime. Hence finding a way to re-center our thoughts. I used a few moments to breathe and slow down, if only for a few moments but it worked. This moment was #radicallybeautiful to me. I was incorporating a centering breath with the comforting warmth of my coffee. So how can you stop, breathe and move forward with a fresh thought pattern. Awareness can take a bit of work. To catch yourself before the stress or the craziness of the day gets the better of you is the goal.

I will save a whole post about awareness for another day. But for today, take a moment to breathe and and take into your lungs the freshness of a centered self. Now carry on with your day, fresh. That’s if you have had any day like mine, which of course is now quite lovely!